Animal Rights in Portugal: Two Sides to the Same Law

Portugal has one of the most humane and ground-breaking legislative frameworks for animal welfare in Europe. In recent years the country has made substantial advances with regards to the criminalisation of animal abuse and abandonment, with its latest step being a 2018 law banning euthanasia as a form of population control — prioritising sterilisation, temporary sheltering (until adoption), and socio-political education in its stead.

In Portugal, therefore, it is illegal to kill an animal for the sake population control — e.g. a perfectly healthy stray dog, caught and taken to a kennel or shelter, can never be put down, irrespectively of how long it will stay there; If healthy, the dog can only die of old-age, for anything else will be illegal.

Logically speaking though, if animals are not being euthanised, it is only a matter of simple maths to conclude that there will be an immediate increase in populations roaming the streets or housed in shelters/kennels (and even this logic excludes the added numbers of abandoned animals, or those who are taken into custody by the authorities for animal abuse). Consequently, the law also requires that every Municipality is equipped with the necessary tools to respond to the ever-increasing stray populations, which, at the very least, mean fully-functioning kennels/shelters in compliance with predetermined legislative standards.

In theory, these are brilliant principles pillared on sound logic. In theory…

The Two Sides of the Law

At a very basic level, any legislative framework has two dimensions: the ‘moral’ and the ‘practical’.

Morally speaking, a country’s legislation has the symbolic power of representing what it stands for, what behaviours it tolerates and what its inhabitants believe to be the optimal human code of conduct. In a way, if you look at a nation’s laws you will see its soul.

Practically speaking, though, things tend to drift away from the idealistic foundations of the moral argument and into hinderances of bureaucracy and human nature. When we factor-in issues of corruption, lack of resources, human error, and many other variables, the above-mentioned moral argument will have a tendency to become considerably diminished in its application.

Ultimately, the two factors are not mutually exclusive, and can coexist in parallel realities, each in their own right. In a very simplistic manner, a society can still believe in something, even if its application is somewhat neglected. That, of course, is far from ideal and should be avoided at all costs, for if a legal framework is not enforced (regardless of the area of society) it threatens the credibility of the whole state apparatus in the long-run.

The Shelter ‘Limbo’

As mentioned in the introduction, Portugal has a laudable legal framework regarding animal welfare and rights. Although, currently the country simply lacks the means and will to fully enforce said laws, which can have potentially disastrous consequences. Of those I will focus on a less obvious side-effect: Local authorities being (directly or indirectly/consciously or unconsciously) incentivised to keep private shelters and NGO’s in a legal limbo.

What I mean by using the term ‘limbo’ is that there are non-governmental charities who lack the full accreditation of the law (e.g. land-permit), but still operate at a rate and effectiveness that makes them literally indispensable to local government. In other words, Municipalities need these charities in order to keep afloat in the face of the increasing number of abandoned, stray and mistreated animals.

If an animal shelter’s work is impactful enough, it goes without saying that local authorities will know of its existence. Town Halls and Councils operate at such a localised level that to know what happens within its confines is an inherent part of their raison d’être. So, it will be virtually impossible for local authorities to remain ignorant of an operation that is impacting the integral running of daily-life within their jurisdictions — legally or illegally.

In Portuguese law, Municipalities themselves have to be equipped with their own public kennels, which have to be built and managed according to a set of national guidelines. The reality is that such legal requirements are seldom fulfilled, whether by the non-existence of the equipment itself, or the regulatory shortcomings of the ones that are there.

Consequently, one is left with a reality that considerably lags behind that of legislative demands: non-existing or illegal municipal kennels, coupled with illegally existing shelters.

The Consequences

No Inspections

If we consider that authorities responsible for enforcing the law are themselves at fault, there is very little incentive for them to make sure that both public and private shelters are compliant with the law. First, they would have to start by enforcing said law upon themselves, and second, they would lack the moral authority to inspect anyone else.

From the moment that Municipalities are incapable of inspecting shelters or kennels, the possibilities are endless. Such consequences are too many to go through in-depth in this piece, but just from the top of my head this situation can result in: shelters being run in ways detrimental to animal-welfare; cases of abuse of power; misappropriation of funds; corruption… among many others. When there is no way of enforcing the law, everything and anything is allowed.

An Incentive to Keeping Private Shelters Illegal

Considering the above-mentioned factors, Councils have little to no incentive to pursue or push for the legalisation of private shelters. In a nutshell, these charities do the Council’s work — and more importantly, they do it for free.

The first step towards making non-governmental shelters legal would be to acknowledge their existence. Just that step alone would mean that Municipalities would be forced to inspect said places to access their suitability. This would result in local authorities either deeming a place suitable (which, depending on the state of the public kennels, could force them to improve their own), or unsuitable (which would result in shutting-down the place, forcing them to rehouse dozens or hundreds of animals). Either solution is not in the Council’s best interests.

The second step, if the shelter in question needs Central Government’s approval to be legalised, would be to rally for its legalisation in Parliament. This would result in a politically official stance of unity with the private shelter. Once again, this could be costly, politically or otherwise.

Politically, depending on who is in power at the time, to lobby government could be a costly endeavour if one has to seek allies or battle for new legislation. This is of little interest to Municipalities whose work focuses more on managing issues a local level and want to coexist smoothly with the Central Government.

Monetarily, if a Council stands behind a private enterprise, it has to make sure its own infrastructure is up to those standards, while also being expected to engage in some form of protocol with said charity. Both of which, are probably going to cost money in one way or another.

The third step would be to officially recognise the charity as an integral part of the Municipality, a partner to local powers when it comes to animal welfare and rescue. According to the magnitude of the animal problem (which is fairly big at the moment), this is going to require a whole set of protocols, partnerships and ongoing lines of communication between the two entities. The charity will be officially recognised for its valuable work in bettering society at large and enhancing the quality of life of the community it serves. Consequently, it will only be logical that the Municipality contributes to its running monetarily or otherwise (infrastructure, fundraising, manpower, etc).

The Takeaway

These steps are not to be taken as a strict map of how things would happen, and in what order. They are interchangeable in their nature and serve the purpose of highlighting a real problem: Local government has no incentives whatsoever to pursue the legalisation of already-existing animal shelters.

To put it bluntly, keeping private shelters illegal is in the interest of Municipalities because the former does the work of the latter for free, without being able to ask for assistance, and without any official channels to communicate any wrongdoing in their field. Most private shelters do the heavy-lifting that the Council is not willing (or is unable) to do, while being barred from any form of social or legal protections. And for as long as they are kept illegal, local governments will be able to keep harvesting the fruits of other people’s labour, money, and time.

Is it technically legal? Yes.

Is it immoral and in direct contradiction of the country’s legal framework?Also, yes.

Should it be allowed to continue? Under no circumstances.

For now, whether Portugal is ready to act according to its own laws remains to be seen. But for the sake of preserving the country’s progressive and human ideals that are thoroughly ingrained in its legislative framework, it is only natural to keep our fingers crossed and hope for change.